Alan K. Rode was steeped in film history from the cradle. His grandfather was a colorful musician-he sold bootleg whiskey from his violin case during Prohibition in Hollywood- composer and actor who was an assistant musical director at Universal Studios and later founded Corelli-Jacobs Recording Inc. in New York City.  Along with his Mother- whose eclectic lineage includes an Uncle who fought Jack Dempsey along with her birth Father who promoted rodeos at Gilmore Stadium with cowboy legend Hoot Gibson- Alan's family dinner table was enlivened with myriad tales about the golden years of Hollywood.

Alan wrote extensively for Filmmonthly.com and has also composed DVD liner notes and free lance articles for a variety of publications.  His first book, Charles McGraw, Biography of a Film Noir Tough Guy was the culmination of a detailed study about the life of the noted character actor transposed against the evolution of the film noir style from the golden age of Hollywood to television and beyond.  Charles McGraw was selected as one of the ten best books of 2008 by Classic Images and won praise from authors ranging from Leonard Maltin to James Ellroy.  

Alan is also a charter director of The Film Noir Foundation, a 501-c non –profit organization dedicated to displaying and rescuing “America’s Noir Heritage”. He is senior editor for the Foundation’s newsletter The Noir City Sentinel, and serves as co-programmer and host for the annual Noir City film festival in Los Angeles. Alan has programmed and hosted diverse cinema events including the American Cinematheque’s Festival of Horror and Fantasy and an extensive Warner Brothers  retrospective – The Brothers Warner-at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood. His original series of film noir programs including: Amnesia- Film Noir's Version of the Common Cold, Greenstreet and Lorre and Red, White and Black: Film Noir and the Blacklist, played for eight consecutive months at the historic Silent Movie Theatre in Los Angeles.

He hosted the gala reopening of the historic Million Dollar Theatre in downtown Los Angeles for the Los Angeles Conservancy's Last Remaining Seats (LRS) series presentation of Mildred Pierce in 2008 and was a special guest at the Robert Osborne Classic Film Festival at Athens, Georgia in March 2009.  He is currently the programmer/host of the annual Arthur Lyons Film Noir Festival (formerly the Palm Springs Film Noir Festival) held each May at the Camelot Theatres in Palm Springs, California. He will be hosting the opening of the Noir City- Chicago festival in August 2010.

Alan has provided DVD narrative commentaries and special feature appearances for classic films of all genres.  His expert commentary is featured on the recently restored New York Confidential DVD and on the forthcoming Blu-Ray edition of From Here to Eternity. He is a member of the Writer’s Guild, the American Film Institute and served on the film selection board of the Los Angeles Conservancy.

Alan is currently at work on a biography of Hollywood's prolific director of classic films, Michael Curtiz.